NAME: Peter Butler
UNIVERSITY: Calgary
CATEGORY: Student-Athlete
SPORT: Men’s Cross Country
YEARS ACTIVE: 1978-1980
HIGHLIGHTS:
Three-time Canada West XC champion
CIAU cross country gold medalist in 1978 and 1979
Canadian junior men’s record holder in the 10,000m for over three decades
BIOGRAPHY:
One of the top runners to ever compete for the University of Calgary’s cross country team, Peter Butler won the Canada West title in all three of his years as a Dino student-athlete, while going on to win the individual gold at a pair of CIAU Championships.
Butler’s reign as the Canada West cross country champ spanned 1978 through 1980. After back-to-back national titles in 1978 and 1979, he placed second with a time of 30:52 at the 1980 CIAU Championships in Guelph, Ont.
As a 19-year-old, Butler finished 7th at the 1977 IAAF World Junior Cross Country Championship in Germany, then set a Canadian Junior 10,000m record of 29:10 that stood until 2010. He was both the Canadian 5,000-metre and 10,000-metre champion. and placed 11th in the 10,000-metre at the 1983 IAAF World Championships in Helsinki, Finland. Butler qualified for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, though Canada’s boycott of those Summer Games precluded his participation.
Butler would later transition into marathon racing and won the 1985 California International Marathon in 1985 when he set a course record of 2:10:56, which at the time was the second fastest marathon time ever clocked by a Canadian.
Butler and wife Karen, founded Forerunners, a speciality running shoe store, in Vancouver, and continue to operate it today, with two locations.